As Chrissie swirled under the mirror ball, she had just the tiniest pang of regret that this would be the last time they did this. Careful, she told herself, you’re getting sentimental.
Adrian touched her on the elbow and indicated he was going outside. For a spliff, she guessed. None of the others touched the stuff but she didn’t mind it from time to time, so she went out to be companionable. They stood in a little courtyard at the back of the club, listening to the pound of the bass through the walls.
‘I guess this is the last time we’ll all come here,’ she remarked, drawing hard on the joint and enjoying the fuzziness it gave her. Adrian took it back off her with a sigh.
‘I feel like such a fucking loser,’ he told her. ‘The Shack’s the closest thing Spike’s got to a family home. And I can’t do anything about it.’
Chrissie frowned.
‘What about your place? Isn’t that home? And Donna’s?’
‘They’re not homes. They’re houses. Spike lives for coming here in the summer with all his cousins. He has a shit time most of the year, you know. Donna’s . . . a nightmare. Not just to me.’
Donna was Adrian’s ex-girlfriend, and Spike’s mother. She’d got pregnant by Adrian six years ago, just before they split up, and had almost refused to let Adrian have anything to do with the little boy whatsoever. She was a monster, highly strung, self-centred, manipulative, unreliable . . . Chrissie had only met her once and loathed her on sight. She moved the goalposts constantly and used Spike as a weapon to get what she wanted from Adrian - mostly money. But as Adrian didn’t have much, she threw tantrums and made empty threats, mostly involving emigrating to Australia, and every time she did this Adrian was gutted, despairing.
He was, however, his own worst enemy. If David got the looks and Philip the brains, then Adrian got the talent. He was a breathtakingly gifted cabinetmaker, could coax the most exquisite pieces of furniture out of the most unassuming piece of wood, yet he couldn’t motivate or organise himself to run a business. Instead, he took work as a jobbing carpenter, and even though his workmanship was far beyond that of a normal chippie, he usually ended up getting sacked as he frequently failed to turn up on the job. He had no sense of urgency, didn’t seem to understand that when people took him on they expected things finished in a reasonable time frame. As a result, he was as poor as a church mouse, which didn’t seem to bother him because he wasn’t a material person. But having a small child meant he at least had to provide a roof over Spike’s head, when he was allowed access. In the end, Chrissie knew, Jane and Graham had bought him a tiny flat, something which had caused much ill-feeling amongst the others at the time.
His mother’s announcement had shocked him, however. It almost seemed to galvanise him.
‘I’m going to have to seriously get my shit together,’ he told Chrissie. ‘I can’t let The Shack go, for Spike’s sake. He adores all his cousins. They’re like his brothers and sisters. He lives for the summer, so he can spend time with them. If this place goes, then that’s it for him.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Take out a mortgage on the flat, I guess,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad bought it outright, when they were financially secure. I’ve got enough equity.’
‘But what about the repayments?’ asked Chrissie, ever practical. ‘You’ve got to meet the payments. And you don’t have a regular salary.’
‘Well, I’ll have to get one.’ Adrian fiddled with the black leather and silver bangle on his wrist. ‘All this has made me realise, Spike’s the only one that matters in all this. Mum’ll be all right. You lot will be all right. You’ve all got each other. Without The Shack, Donna calls all the shots. She’s happy for him to be here all summer while she pisses it up with her mates. But I can’t keep him cooped up in the flat.’
Chrissie leant back against the cool of the wall. Her head was slightly woozy, pleasantly so. Adrian’s words had touched her. His determination to do well by his son had touched her even more. His bony, angular face and his deep-set eyes had looked so intense. She hadn’t really looked at the situation from the point of view of Spike. Adrian was right. His cousins were like his brothers and sisters. He trailed quite happily in their wake all summer, and they looked after him without complaint, for he was a game little boy who never moaned.
How could she condemn Spike to summers with his awful mother, or stuck in Adrian’s flat like a battery chicken? He needed sunshine, sand, freedom, fresh air, laughter.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s a chance I might be able to swing something. Serena suggested we buy it between us. Maybe I could work something out . . .’
Adrian looked at her, surprised.
‘I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I know you didn’t.’
He put his arms around her. They were very close. They touched foreheads.
‘You’re amazing. You know that?’ he told her.
‘Don’t say that. I haven’t done anything yet.’
But she felt a little glow inside, a sense that perhaps she was going to do something good, and change someone’s life for the better. Spike was all of their responsibility, because Adrian was . . . well, Adrian.
They stumbled back into the club arm in arm, slightly stoned, the music a shock to their system. Chrissie indicated that she was going to get a drink, and disentangled herself from Adrian’s arm. At the bar, she turned to see if anyone else wanted a drink. And what she saw made her heart skip a beat.
Through the seething mass of bodies, Adrian gave a discreet thumbs-up sign to Serena. Serena gave him one of her kitten smiles in return. Chrissie felt a knife through her heart as she watched them move through the crowds towards each other.
Jesus, how could she not have noticed it? She could see the body language now!Butter-wouldn’t-melt Serena and little-boy-lost Adrian. She watched as they took each other by the hand and made their way to the dance floor, their eye contact a little too lingering for brother- and sister-in-law, their fingers laced a little too tightly.
Chrissie felt sick. She staggered her way to the toilets, a heaving mêlée of young girls swapping lipsticks and God knows what else. She pushed to the front of the queue and grabbed the first cubicle to come free, to squawks of indignation.
She wasn’t actually sick, but she stood with her head between her legs, deep breathing. Bastard. She had felt genuine concern for Adrian. He’d made a total fool of her. She’d bought his sob story, believed his determination. She wondered how they had planned to approach her, if it had been Serena’s idea to play the Spike card. Everyone knew she had a soft spot for the little boy. How could you not? He was innocence itself. How long had they been having an affair, she wondered? What was their long-term plan? Was Serena going to leave Philip? She wouldn’t blame her.
My God, she realised. The Milton men were just like their father. She pushed back the distasteful memory. She brought it out as seldom as she could, but it was always there in the back of her mind. Graham Milton pushing himself on her in the beach hut late one evening, when the others had all gone star-spotting - there was a meteor shower. His whisky breath, his hot hands on her breasts, his insistence that no one would have to know, that it was all right, that she needn’t feel guilty . . . She had never told anyone, not Jane, not David. They could continue to worship the slimy old goat for as long as they liked, but she knew if she said anything she would end up being the guilty party, the one who had been parading around in a bikini, the one who had been giving the come-on.
Like father, like sons. Though not David, she hoped. He had his faults, but she had never suspected him of infidelity. She wasn’t being naive, he just wasn’t that type. Besides, he wouldn’t get a better time in bed with anyone else. She was pretty sure of that.
She felt shaken, though. Her judgement had let her down. Chrissie prided herself on her ability to suss people out, and she’d got it badly wrong with Adrian and Serena. She felt betrayed, too. They were happy to use her. They’d clearly discus
sed it in quite cold-blooded terms.
Chrissie didn’t let anyone use her. She wouldn’t let anyone trick her into buying The Shack. If she did end up putting in an offer, it would be her legacy, for Jack and Emma and Hannah, and the rest of the Miltons could bloody well wait until the end of time for an invitation.
She put on a slick of red lipstick and shook out her hair. She adjusted her dress so another inch of her cleavage showed. She smiled, her eyes glittering, and then she walked out of the toilets and back into the club, straight onto the dance floor and into her husband’s arms.
‘You ever double-cross me,’ she whispered to him. ‘You ever two-time me or fuck me over, and you are finished.’
He looked at her, startled, then laughed.
‘You’ve been at the wacky baccy with Adrian,’ he said. ‘You’re being paranoid.’
He wrapped his arms round her and pulled her to him. The music curled itself about them. She put her head on his shoulder, wondering if she could trust him, wondering if that rogue Milton gene was inside him too.
Across the dance floor, she saw Adrian and Serena slip out of the door. At the bar, Philip was watching her, lazily, his eyes narrowed.
She shivered.
‘Just because you’re paranoid,’ she thought, ‘doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’
Frankly, the sooner The Shack was sold, the better.
5
SANDCASTLES
Janet watched in pride as her son drew out the foundations of his castle carefully in the sand. He had the exact measurements written on a piece of paper. He had all the tools he needed by his side. He had several hours before the tide came back in for his trial run. And three more days to run through it again. Three more days until the competition.
Her heart constricted slightly when she thought about it. The competition was the highlight of Alan’s year. He spent months preparing, experimenting with different designs, then practising. If anyone deserved to win, it was Alan. And of course, for the past three years, he had. The look on his face as he clutched the trophy to his chest made it all worth while, but Janet always worried this was the year he would lose. As soon as they arrived at the beach hut, she became tormented with doubts, almost crippled with the fear of his dejection if the trophy was handed over to someone else. And it could happen. The Everdene Sandcastle Competition was becoming bigger and bigger, the prize money was considerable. People were coming from all over the country to take part. Businesses were sponsoring competitors to put their logos on the front of their castles. The local news team were coming this year to film it; there were rumours of a whole programme being made. There were food stalls, drink stalls, entertainment, glamorous girls distributing leaflets. What had started as a bit of fun on the beach had become big business. Like anything good in this country, it had sold out. Gone commercial.
Janet’s hands gripped the rail of the veranda as she watched her son coming back up the beach with two large buckets of water. Water was as essential as sand in the building of a castle. It was the moisture that held the construction together. She watched as he poured his cargo carefully over his plot and mixed it in to get the perfect texture. It was a science as much as an art.
Of all the epithets thrown at Alan’s condition over the years, simple was the one his mother liked most. Simple meant easy. Simple meant straightforward. And to Janet, that was exactly what he was. There were plenty of other words that had been used. Not all of them euphemistic. Backward. Not all there. Retard. Two sandwiches short of a picnic. Challenging.
Special needs, they would have called him now, of course.
Not that she had ever really had a proper diagnosis. They blamed lack of oxygen at birth. She had known something was wrong when she was in labour. Call it a mother’s instinct. The pain had been unnatural; she could sense the baby inside her belly writhing in discomfort. The midwife had told her sharply not to be so stupid when she described her fears. Childbirth was supposed to hurt.
Now, of course, they would have had him on a monitor. They would have known the cord was wrapped around his neck. They would have known her baby was in distress, and they would have taken the appropriate action, instead of leaving her for hours, sick with dread, until she had finally delivered him.
Her beautiful, wonderful, damaged baby.
They hadn’t known anything was wrong at the time. On the surface, he looked perfect. But gradually, as he failed to develop as fast as his peers, a picture emerged, and the difficult delivery had become the scapegoat. By then, Janet adored her son more than any other mother had ever loved a child.
Not once did she bemoan her situation. She seemed to accept quite happily that it was her lot to look after him. He was slow to potty train, slow to speak, slow to learn how to use a knife and fork, but Janet never got frustrated. She had the patience of a saint with Alan, and he always got there in the end, which made her all the more proud of his achievements.
Unfortunately, her husband wasn’t as enamoured. He had no patience with the little boy, and would shout at him when he was slow to react, or got things wrong. Janet caught him looking at his son with contempt and loathing once too often. Eventually she told him to go. They would be better off without him. Alan didn’t need someone breathing down his neck and belittling him. He needed love and encouragement, not ill-concealed scorn. Her husband didn’t need telling twice.
For the past thirty years, it had been just the two of them. Of course it was hard. She was a single mother with a disabled child. Her husband, once he had gone, didn’t see it his duty to make any contribution towards his offspring and she certainly didn’t demand it. She could manage. She would manage. She devoted herself to Alan entirely, and woe betide anyone who suggested she might need a break. Why would she need a break from the person who was her reason for living?
When he was in his early twenties, the social services put pressure on her to let Alan go into sheltered accommodation. They insisted it would do him good to have a bit of independence. They were confident he would be able to manage. But Janet refused. He belonged with her. She was there to look after him. She didn’t want any respite. The thought of waking up without Alan in the house filled her with dread. What on earth would she do without him? The snotty social worker dared to suggest she was being selfish, that she didn’t have Alan’s interests at heart. Didn’t have his interests at heart? She had devoted her whole life to him. Bloody social workers - they weren’t happy unless they were interfering and making you feel bad about yourself. She soon sent her away with a flea in her ear.
Then there had been what she had come to think of as the Rachel fiasco. That had given her a terrible scare. Alan attended a centre three afternoons a week. She had come to collect him early, because she needed to pick up a prescription from the surgery on the way home. She had found him holding hands with a woman, sitting on the bench in the garden. Appalled, she had grilled the people who ran the centre and found out the truth. Alan and Rachel had been ‘close’ for weeks. The staff didn’t see what the problem was. They thought it was sweet.
Janet thought it was dangerous. It upset the status quo. It upset the balance of Alan’s life, to bring in a third party. Besides, what if this Rachel was just toying with his affections and ended up breaking his heart? Worse, what if they got too close and . . . It was an instinct, after all, to mate, wasn’t it? It would be a disaster.
Janet had to nip it in the bud. She quickly made arrangements for Alan to attend another centre, in another town. It meant a bit more travelling, but it didn’t matter. He was confused at first, but he soon settled in. She didn’t worry that he might ever find his way to the old centre. Alan didn’t understand the bus timetable, and had a hopeless sense of direction. He’d never be able to find his way back to Rachel, and Janet was super-vigilant to make sure he didn’t transfer his affections to anyone else.
It was soon after the Rachel fiasco that he had discovered sand sculpture. He’d seen it on the telly, and he wanted a go. He
’d always been good at art. He was five when she realised he had a talent. The pictures he drew even at that young age were vivid and accurate. And so she fed his talent over the years, spending all her extra money on materials for him, marvelling at how this part of his brain had obviously remained intact. She went to the Early Learning Centre and bought him a big blue plastic sandpit, then filled it with sacks of pristine sand. And he began to sculpt. Simple things at first-a horse’s head, a turtle. Then more complicated-a sphinx, a dragon, a minotaur. She was delighted that he had found a new passion, and hoped that it helped dim any memories of Rachel that he might be harbouring. He had mentioned her once or twice, but the sand sculpting seemed the perfect distraction. He wasn’t really a people person, Alan. He was a doer.
Someone had told Janet about the annual sandcastle competition at Everdene. She had saved hard for months to scrape together enough money for them to go. A beach hut seemed like the perfect place for them to stay, and so she rented one for a week. He would be able to practise on the sand right outside their door. And she didn’t like hotels or bed and breakfasts. They never did things properly, the way she would. They went there on the bus, Alan excitedly clutching his sketches, his case filled with the tools he would need.
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